Page 16 of Bride Bargain

“No it’s not.” Claire drops her hands with a huff. “Not with me. Iknowhow you speak, okay? This is your smart guy bluster. This is what you do when you want someone to shut up and leave you alone.”

“See? At least one of us can read signals,” I say dryly.

And—shit.

It’s entirely the wrong thing to say, and I know it before the words even leave my mouth. If I could snatch them back, if I could chew them up and swallow them, I would. Christ, I don’t evenmeanthem, I’m just being an asshole because Claire has closed off from me and the panic ringing in my ears is nearly deafening. Can’t think straight. Can’t think at all.

“Wait,” I say. “I didn’t mean that.”

She’s everything to me, and I’m messing this up.

Claire turns away. “Yes, you did.”

A moment later her bedroom door snaps closed, and I’m left in the light from the TV screen, empty noodle bowls strewn on the coffee table behind me. My throat is so tight I can’t swallow, and Claire’s scent is still in my nose, my skin, my hair. Can’t escape her now, can’t get even a moment’s relief, because she’sinsideme. Burrowed into my cells; twined around my DNA.

I got what I wanted, and it’s torture.

Seven

Claire

Elliot Ramsay and I have had three Big Fights over the years.

The first: we were teenagers, bored on a sleepy summer morning, and I had the bright idea to dye my blonde hair red. I begged Elliot to help me with the box dye; he refused, folding his arms and jutting his chin. Always so stubborn about the weirdest things. Why on earth did he even care?

I accused him of being a sexist jerk who wanted to control all women everywhere. You know: normal, level-headed teenage stuff.

Elliot laughed, then dug the plastic gloves out of the box.

My hair looked awful afterward, like a clown’s wig. I blamed him, obviously, but he helped me dye it back and made it all better.

Our second Big Fight was in our early twenties, a few months after I started working as Elliot’s PA. It had been a shitty week, with damp spreading through my tiny rented apartment, a sprained wrist from slipping on the rainy sidewalk outside ouroffice, and the not-so-surprising news from back home that my parents were finally getting a divorce.

I ranted about all of this to Elliot, pacing back and forth in front of his desk—we shared a much smaller office back then, in a basement in the outskirts of the city. Definitely no penthouse views.

Elliot nodded and hummed in all the right places, like a tutorial video for Man Practicing Empathy. Then, a few hours later, he left a box of tampons and a bar of chocolate on my desk.

Yes, I was on my period.Yes, his suspicions were correct.

But man, I nearly strangled my idiot best friend right there and then.

This fight, though, Big Fight number three—this one might take the trophy. Because for the first time since I’ve known him, Elliot Ramsay slept away from home last night, even though he is a creature of habit who treasures routines and familiar spaces.

When I stepped out of my bedroom this morning and found the kitchen cold and empty, the surfaces clear and sparkly-clean, my stomach dropped to my knees. When I tapped on his door and got no response, it plummeted all the way to the floorboards.

Elliothatesunexpected breaks in his routine. They make his shoulders go all stiff.

But last night… he must have hated being near me more. Didn’t even want to stay in the same apartment overnight.

…Shit.

A chill spreads down my limbs, and I jog back to my room and snatch my phone off the nightstand. I’m shivering so hard, my teeth chatter as I call my missing husband. The dial tone purrs in my ear.

Come on.

Pick up. Pick up.

Because—I gave him such a hard time. We shared the most intense, most amazing experience of my life, and then I panicked and shut down on him, all because I couldn’t tell how he felt. Couldn’t read the unreadable man.

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